Hello gentle readers. Have you ever had dream that felt so real, you thought you were awake? Suppose you just had two extremely vivid nightmares: one where a giant T-Rex is chasing you through your house, and the other where Hofstra put ugly blue signs in front of every building. You wake up and wander around campus, and suddenly you don’t know what to believe.
If you think about it, there are plenty of things at Hofstra that are so bizarre they seem like they’re straight out of some whacked out dream, and mind you, I’ve had some pretty strange dreams. Recently I had one where I was flying after a train full of poisonous jellyfish on a cutting board. Hofstra consistently operates on that same level of absurdity.
Think about all the Twilight Zone stuff that goes on here. You know how it goes. You get to class in the morning two minutes late, and already the classroom is full. Your professor is one of two kinds of people; either they completely ignore you, or they cough loudly, stamp their foot, and tells everyone but you that three lates equal an absence. Your professor goes on to talk about their overall satisfaction with the class, their overall satisfaction with the University, and maybe even their overall satisfaction their personal life.
Ultimately this lapse in attention will cost you on the test. You’ll be sitting there, pencil in hand, frantically thinking back on everything your professor said in a desperate attempt to remember something that will help on the brutal multiple choice question you’re faced with. Yet try as you might, you just can’t remember who your professor’s last lover was, and why they broke up.
In your next class you are unfortunate enough to get stuck sitting right next to That Kid. You all know who I’m talking about, and if you don’t, you are That Kid. He always has a completely unrelated comment about everything that utterly misses the point of the topic. For instance, if your professor asks what Plato’s allegory of the cave means, a typical That Kid response would be, “Well, maybe the people didn’t want to leave the cave because they hit their head on a stalactite. I mean, I was in a cave once, and I hit my head; maybe that happened to Plato.” If that wasn’t annoying enough, his voice sounds like he has a kazoo stuck up his nose, kind of like a cross between Rick Moranis and a foghorn. Plus the bastard always has a cold.
After what seems like three snot filled hours (But was really only two snot filled hours), you’re finally done with class. However it’s midterm season, so you head to the library to study. Unfortunately, the library has been replaced with the bridge of a 1950s rocket ship. Now, there are only two logical explanations for this. One, that there was a sale on old Star Trek sets and Rabinowitz couldn’t resist, or two, that not only do aliens exist, but they’re also Hofstra’s architects. Suspecting the latter, you quietly draw your laser gun. Senses tingling, you creep deeper into the bridge, clinging to the shadows. This stealthy infiltration is flawless, except that actually finding shadows to hide in on the bridge proves highly difficult. All of them seem to have been exterminated by the large florescent lights giving you a tan. Well, and alien tan.
So you decide to play it cool. Walking with a healthy Han Solo swagger, you approach the main desk and suavely ask the librarian for a book’s location. She smiles warmly, giving you clear and detailed instructions, mentioning that if you need any more help to feel free to ask. Realizing that she must be an alien, you quickly shoot her. Any human librarian employed at Hofstra would still be working on the concept that they were being spoken to.
After the shot, hostilities break out immediately. You run staggering from the bridge, hot laser beams streaking through the billowing smoke; you hadn’t bargained on so many Hofstra employees being aliens. You head for safety across the Unispan only to find that the student center has transformed into a xenophile launch pad! Also, for some reason there is a tarp covered station with big green surfboards tacked to it. Maybe the aliens have a sense of humor? Or maybe Hofstra finally got wise about global warming and the surfboards are their emergency Tsunami escape system. Whatever the case may be, you are now surrounded by pissed off aliens with lasers and spiky things. As your doom slowly closes around you, you think back on the good times. There is a searing hot pain, and you wake up.
It was all a dream: just a terrible, terrible dream. You eat breakfast, take a shower, and pick up the Chronicle: another ordinary day. You scan the front page, and your eyes go wide. Your hand shakes, your lip trembles. The headline reads, “President Rabinowitz A Big Alien And Proud Of It!”
“Noooo!” You scream into the sky as Axin and The NAB blast into space.
Is this how it ends? Do the credits roll on a sad note? Is this a story of one helpless person in a sea of horror, doubt, and aliens?
No, I say! The human race will not go quietly into the night, nay, we will fight back with everything we have! Extraterrestrials will not run this University!
That is why I hereby challenge President Stuart Rabinowitz to a duel of honor in the quad on Monday October 22nd at 1:00pm sharp. The rules will be simple: no lasers, no cheating, and no wimping out. If Rabinowitz wins, I will expose my identity to the world and I’ll allow him to call me a stink pants. However, if I win he will be forced to withdraw his alien forces immediately from Hofstra, or at the very least, remove that rampaging T-Rex that always makes me late for class. I think the terms are fair.
I’ll see you on the 22nd Rabinowitz, and may the best species win!
Want to ask me a question, tell me I suck, or warn me that Rabinowitz has a gun? Email your letters to Silence Doless (Duel This) to bronzehedwick@gmail.com
The columns are getting weirder, and leaning more heavily into my then obsession with fantasy versus reality. I was also very angry in college, and that shows here. I lightly edited this one to remove some unnecessary and I think problematic language that I now regret, and will probably do that from now on when applicable. That challenge really was printed in the paper.